Pathfinder: Unrated Edition [Blu-ray]

 

 

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The historical question is not whether the Vikings came to North America but rather how far South they came once they made it to Vinland (a Norse settlement has been found on the island of Newfoundland). There must have been interactions between the Norsemen and the "skrælingar" (Native Americans), and while there is no evidence that the two races engaged in a violent confrontation it does make a neat idea for a movie, which is why we have the film "Pathfinder: The Legend of the Ghost Warrior." Ghost is a young boy who is left behind after a previous Vikings raid and who grows up eighteen years later to be played by Karl Urban (Eomer in The Lord of the Rings" but also Julius Caesar on "Xena Warrior Princess"). When another Viking raiding party led by Gunnar (Clancy Brown) attacks his village, Ghost leads the fight against the invaders, hoping not only to save his adopted people but also win the heart of Starfire (Moon Bloodgood).

Basically what he have here is "Vikings and Indians" instead of "Cowboys and Indians." Couching the film in such terms, of course, is easily understood but not politically correct. But if you think about the latter in contemporary sports terms, the idea of the Minnesota Vikings taking on the Cleveland Indians is certainly in the ballpark for a key dynamic of this film, which features armored warriors against people armed with essentially sticks and stones. The idea of a war being waged in the New World a thousand years ago is pretty compelling: the concept trailer they shot to get the film produced makes that case quite nicely up to the point when the native warrior attacks the hulking Norseman and you see it is the Viking who has the ax and the lad in the buckskin is fighting with a sword.

The genesis for this 2007 film is the 1987 Norwegian film "Veiviseren" ("Pathfinder"), which is based on a Sami legend. The first full-length film in Sami, that movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. This version, written by Laeta Kalogridis and directed by Marcus Nispel, takes the basic story idea of a warrior leading the Sami to victory against a horde of invading Chudes and transplants it from Finnmark to the New World. The Sami become the nameless Native American people rather than the Beothuk people of Newfoundland and the Chudes are transformed into Vikings.

My major problem with this film, quite frankly, is that the hero of this movie is white and the subtext is that if it were not for the kindhearted son of a Viking who was raised by Native Americans the Vikings who come back in Act II of this film would have killed ever native inhabitant of the continent. Well, okay, that would not have happened unless the Vikings infected the local population with a disease that their immune systems could not handle, but you get the idea. At least this movie allows the title character, played by Russell Means, to come up with the obvious strategy that a people armed with Stone Age weapons fighting on their own turf would use against three dragonships worth of Viking warriors, because that is what I really wanted this film to be about.

"Pathfinder" never tries to pass itself off as history, which is a legitimate approach, but a bit more realism would not have hurt. The film was shot in British Columbia, which explains how they get from the ocean shore to snow capped mountains in a relatively short period of time, a direction dictated not by geography but because that is what happened in "Veiviseren." What they should have done was take the premise of a people fighting back against armored invaders in general without being tied to the specifics of the earlier film. Setting up the Vikings to be defeated on terrain and in weather more akin to the land from which they came ends up backfiring.

Whenever possible the film relies on images more than dialogue, although they do not end up going the "Quest for Fire" route. The color palette in the film favors the Vikings for most of the film, tending towards blue, black, white, and silver stressing night, cold, and metal. Eventually these colors overwhelm the film and works against the basic contrast of the Vikings warriors in the lush green forests that I found compelling. The Norsemen speak Icelandic, which is apparently close to the language of the Vikings, leaving English to be the language of Ghost and his tribe.

I ended up rounding down on this film because in the final act of the film the Vikings enter the realm of being too stupid to live. There is a scene that involves going around a frozen lake. Gunnar sees this approach as being an attack on the courage of him and his men, insisting on walking across the ice. At this point I turned to my daughter and said, "Gee, if only they came from a land of ice and snow, and knew something about when not to cross a frozen lake." Besides, I like it when the good guys win a lot more than when the bad guys lose.

A brief history lesson -- the Vikings were the first Europeans to land in the Americas, almost five hundred years before Columbus. They even settled down to live there for awhile, though it didn't last.

There's a brilliant movie somewhere in that story -- an epic of exploration, discovery and struggle between two very different peoples. Too bad "Pathfinder" isn't that movie, with its mindless action, ridiculous characters, and a pompous stream of wretched dialogue and silly direction. It's a disaster, pure and simple.

An American Indian woman found a little boy abandoned in the ruin of a Viking ship, and brought him bck to her people, where he was renamed Ghost and brought up as one of them. But though Ghost (Karl Urban) becomes strong and well-liked, he's still haunted by his Viking past -- until the day he sees dragon boats coming to shore, and his village is brutally slaughtered.

Wounded and left for dead, Ghost is found by a hunting party that includes Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), the token love interest. When the Vikings find him again, he must outwit the small army of Vikings, protect his remaining people from them -- and finally settle his divided feelings about his own identity.

Yeah, it's all a cliche -- outcast hero raised among peaceful people, finds inner peace by kicking savage butts of his birth race. Even in the hands of a good director this would be staggeringly unexiting -- and it isn't in the hands of a good director. It's in Marcus "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake" Nispel's hands.

And Nispel has clearly decided that this is his magnum opus: creepy lighting, slow-motion, and pompous dramatic shots like swords being lifted from the snow (signaling that this is a Very Significant Moment). But there's nothing that even a good action movie should have -- there is no logic, cohesion, plot or good dialogue ("The prophecy... is coming to fulfilment!").

Instead, Nispel packs it with gore, swords and torture, to demonstrate that all the Vikings are PURE EVIL, lest you waste any sympathy on them. But his action scenes are more likely to inspire laughter than horror or cheap thrills, especially when Ghost starts fighting the Vikings... in a SLED CHASE. Really. It only gets campier and sillier as time goes on, until Ghost defeats the bad guys by triggering an avalanche... by yelling.

Karl Urban is a deeply talented actor with immense presence... and an unfortunate tendency to pick some really awful action movies. He does the best that anyone could do with such a flimsy character (come on, who really thinks Ghost would join the Vikings?), which isn't that much. Bloodgood is basically a token love interest, and not a very realistic one either.

As for the supporting characters, they might as well be played by paper dolls. The Indians are stereotypically peaceful, spiritual and very boring, with names like Starfire and Wind in Tree. And the Vikings are grunting, thick-skulled behemoths in bloodstained horned skull helmets, with no sign of higher brain function. These aren't Vikings, these are orcs.

A promising idea gets buried under a steaming, putrescent heap of mindless action, logic-free scripting, and characters so thin you could wrap Christmas presents in them. Stunningly wretched.

A brief history lesson -- the Vikings were the first Europeans to land in the Americas, almost five hundred years before Columbus. They even settled down to live there for awhile, though it didn't last.

There's a brilliant movie somewhere in that story -- an epic of exploration, discovery and struggle between two very different peoples. Too bad "Pathfinder" isn't that movie, with its mindless action, ridiculous characters, and a pompous stream of wretched dialogue and silly direction. It's a disaster, pure and simple.

An American Indian woman found a little boy abandoned in the ruin of a Viking ship, and brought him bck to her people, where he was renamed Ghost and brought up as one of them. But though Ghost (Karl Urban) becomes strong and well-liked, he's still haunted by his Viking past -- until the day he sees dragon boats coming to shore, and his village is brutally slaughtered.

Wounded and left for dead, Ghost is found by a hunting party that includes Starfire (Moon Bloodgood), the token love interest. When the Vikings find him again, he must outwit the small army of Vikings, protect his remaining people from them -- and finally settle his divided feelings about his own identity.

Yeah, it's all a cliche -- outcast hero raised among peaceful people, finds inner peace by kicking savage butts of his birth race. Even in the hands of a good director this would be staggeringly unexiting -- and it isn't in the hands of a good director. It's in Marcus "Texas Chainsaw Massacre Remake" Nispel's hands.

And Nispel has clearly decided that this is his magnum opus: creepy lighting, slow-motion, and pompous dramatic shots like swords being lifted from the snow (signaling that this is a Very Significant Moment). But there's nothing that even a good action movie should have -- there is no logic, cohesion, plot or good dialogue ("The prophecy... is coming to fulfilment!").

Instead, Nispel packs it with gore, swords and torture, to demonstrate that all the Vikings are PURE EVIL, lest you waste any sympathy on them. But his action scenes are more likely to inspire laughter than horror or cheap thrills, especially when Ghost starts fighting the Vikings... in a SLED CHASE. Really. It only gets campier and sillier as time goes on, until Ghost defeats the bad guys by triggering an avalanche... by yelling.

Karl Urban is a deeply talented actor with immense presence... and an unfortunate tendency to pick some really awful action movies. He does the best that anyone could do with such a flimsy character (come on, who really thinks Ghost would join the Vikings?), which isn't that much. Bloodgood is basically a token love interest, and not a very realistic one either.

As for the supporting characters, they might as well be played by paper dolls. The Indians are stereotypically peaceful, spiritual and very boring, with names like Starfire and Wind in Tree. And the Vikings are grunting, thick-skulled behemoths in bloodstained horned skull helmets, with no sign of higher brain function. These aren't Vikings, these are orcs.

A promising idea gets buried under a steaming, putrescent heap of mindless action, logic-free scripting, and characters so thin you could wrap Christmas presents in them. Stunningly wretched.

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1.0 out of 5 stars Hey People
Its a damn movie people - don't be so damn serious about it - It's not a historical documentary - It's a movie with blood & guts - If you want to learn about Aboriginals & Vikings... Read more

Published on Nov 11 2007 by Marcel Petit

3.0 out of 5 stars Pathfinder
The story is fine. The action is amazing and I liked the lack of over the top CGI. I will watch this movie more than once. Read more

Published on Aug 8 2007 by L. Weightman

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